This invention relates generally to valuation methods for financial instruments and more particularly to rapid valuation of large numbers of financial instruments.
A large number of assets such as loans, e.g., ten thousand loans or other financial instruments, sometimes become available for sale due to economic conditions, the planned or unplanned divestiture of assets or as the result of legal remedies. The sale of thousands of commercial loans or other financial instruments sometimes involving the equivalent of billions of dollars in assets must sometimes occur within a few months. Of course, the seller of assets wants to optimize the value of the portfolio, and will sometimes group the assets in “tranches.” The term “tranche” as used herein is not limited to foreign notes but also includes assets and financial instrument groupings regardless of country or jurisdiction.
Bidders may submit bids on all tranches, or on only some tranches. In order to win a tranche, a bidder typically must submit the highest bid for that tranche. In connection with determining a bid amount to submit on a particular tranche, a bidder often will engage underwriters to evaluate as many loans as possible within a tranche and within the available limited time. When the time for submitting a bid is about to expire, the bidder will evaluate the loans underwritten at that time, and then attempt to extrapolate a value to the loans that have not then been analyzed by the underwriters.
Traditionally, bids and offers are established based upon an asset's inherent worth and a knowledge of the competitive context. Investment and/or divestiture committees of entities making bids come to consensus on minimum and maximum prices they will unilaterally make. As a result of this process, a bidder may significantly undervalue a tranche and submit a bid that is not competitive or bid higher than the underwritten value and assume unquantified risk. Of course, since the objective is to win each tranche at a price that enables a bidder to earn a return, losing a tranche due to significant undervaluation of the tranche represents a lost opportunity. It would be desirable to provide a system that facilitates accurate valuation of a large number of financial instruments in a short period of time and understand the associated probabilities of return for a given bid. It would be further desirable to determine a bid price for each tranche of a portfolio of financial instruments in a sealed bid auction.